Every class is unfit to govern.

The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.

Great men are almost always bad men.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.